From ideas to businesses. European Start-up Days start in Spodek

A waterless car wash, an intelligent waste-paper basket, an interactive floor, a personalised diet supplement, a social platform for influencers – these innovative business ideas will be presented at the European Start-up Days in the “Spodek” arena during the European Economic Congress which started on Wednesday in Katowice.

A hundred winners of the Start-up Challenge will meet experts and mentors, politicians, business people, business-support organisations, representatives of media and experienced start-upers.

Almost 200 start-ups enrolled for this year’s edition of the Start-up Challenge. The jury has identified the 100 most-interesting ones which will make their presentations in the Scale-up Alley – a space in “Spodek” dedicated to business visionaries. The creators of 18 best concepts will make presentations not only on the stages of the European Start-up Days but also at the European Economic Congress at the International Convention Center, fighting to win their respective categories.

One of the awarded ideas is, e.g., the social platform for influencers – DDOB.com (Daily Dose of Beauty), grouping together mainly representatives of the Z Generation and Millennials, including several thousand young opinion leaders: bloggers, Youtubers and Instagram users. It carries out non-standard campaigns for clients and range campaigns on Instagram, using crowdsourcing for content development. Companies develop communication to their target groups via their opinion leaders. So far 150 thousand photos have been tagged with the following hashtags: #ddob, #ddobinsta and #ddobgirl.

The jury also appreciated a world-scale innovative solution by Beta Bio Technology. It consists of extracting highly purified beta glucan protein and fibre from oats. The project stands out with its specialist know-how, technological lines, the scale of the project, and its pro-health effects in terms of civilisation diseases.

Apart from the participants in the European Economic Congress, Sky Tronic will also be presented, which is one of the first companies in the world to work on the production technology of unmanned aircraft controlled with a system based on artificial-intelligence elements – fuzzy logic (FLC). The project relies on a flight control and stabilisation algorithm which monitors, assesses and controls the object, solving problems in the same way as the human brain does. With this technology, the control of unmanned aircraft will be more precise, and safer in adverse weather and site conditions.

Another interesting project in the Scale-up Alley is BIN-e – an intelligent waste-paper basket designed as a solution for intelligent buildings, companies managing waste in offices and public spaces like offices, airports, railway stations and shopping malls. BIN-e is the first device on the market with the functionality of recognising waste and unique sorting. It relies on intelligent machine learning, based on neural networks.

Another innovative idea – Future steps or an interactive floor dedicated to public spaces – hotels, SPA’s, hospitals, office buildings, offices. It dynamically displays information, e.g. access routes to specific premises and readouts of each person’s location. Also simple interaction with users is possible. The function of locating the directed person provides for dynamic identification and modification of the access route; it can also be integrated with security systems.

Sundose will present its idea in “Spodek” – a personalised supplement with the composition each time suited to the client’s predispositions and health needs. It is prepared on the basis of professional dietetics tools – a health survey and a dietetic interview. The product is delivered in monthly subscription periods and so it does not require preservatives or fillers.

The participants in the European Start-up Days will have an opportunity to see an ecological, waterless, mobile car wash called Waterless. The waterless wash method has been used for years in countries with a water deficit. The process consumes only about 300 millilitres of a specialist substance, and in effect the cars remain clean for 3-4 weeks while the natural environment remains unharmed.

In the Scale-up Alley there will be opportunities to talk to the developers of the following ideas: an educational application for children with diabetes; an intelligent camera saving the lives and health of horses; VR earphones with a function to sense scents; a system to send VAT invoices using B2B; devices for minimally invasive surgery training; the manufacturing technology of unmanned aircraft controlled with a system based on artificial-intelligence elements, and many more innovative inventions.

Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission, in charge of the Energy Union, will be a special guest at the European Start-Up Days. Along with Jerzy Buzek, Member of the European Parliament, former Speaker of the European Parliament and a former Polish Prime Minister, he will visit the stands of the best start-ups in the Scale-up Alley. The participants in the conference will also have an opportunity to listen to his address on the role of advanced technologies and young start-up entrepreneurs in economic modernisation and the transfer to clean energy.

The European Start-up will be held on 11th and 12th of May. The first event of that magnitude combining start-ups and corporations and business-support organisations last year attracted 2 thousand participants. This year, the aim of the event is again to integrate the environment of young entrepreneurs with experts, the CEO’s of large companies, investors and successful business people, who will attend the European Economic Congress in Katowice.